MAGPIE. j j 



great numbers. The drawing was taken from a very beautiful 

 specimen, sent from the Mandan nation, on the Missouri, to 

 Mr Jefferson, and by that gentleman presented to Mr Peale 

 of this city, in whose museum it lived for several months, and 

 where I had an opportunity of examining it. On carefully 

 comparing it with the European magpie in the same collection, 

 no material difference could be perceived. The figure on the 

 plate is reduced to exactly half the size of life. 



This bird unites in its character courage and cunning, 

 turbulency and rapacity. Not inelegantly formed, and dis- 

 tinguished by gay as well as splendid plumage, he has long 

 been noted in those countries where he commonly resides, and 

 his habits and manners are there familiarly known. He is 



continent, while the other was met with in the United States and the 

 Missouri country. 



" The Hudson's Bay magpie is of less size in all its parts than the 

 common magpie, except in its tail, which exceeds that of its congener in 

 length ; but the most remarkable and obvious difference is, in a loose 

 tuft of grayish and white feathers on the back. Length of the body, 

 exclusive of the tail, seven inches, that of the tail from eleven to twelve 

 inches, that of the common being from nine to ten." 



In the "Northern Zoology," Corvus Hudsonicus is quoted as a synonym. 

 The authors remark, " This bird, so common in Europe, is equally plen- 

 tiful in the interior prairie lands of America ; but it is singular, that, 

 though it abounds on the shores of Sweden, and other maritime parts 

 of the Old World, it is very rare on the Alantic, eastward of the Missis- 

 sippi, or Lake Winipeg." " The manners of the American bird are pre- 

 cisely what we have been accustomed to observe in the English one. On 

 comparing its eggs with those of the European bird, they were found to 

 be longer and narrower ; and though the colours are the same, the 

 blotches are larger and more diffused." 



The distinctions mentioned by Mr Sabine seem very trivial ; indeed 

 they may be confined entirely to a less size. The grayish tuft of feathers 

 on the rump is the same in the common magpie of Britain. I have had 

 an opportunity of examining only one North American specimen, which 

 is certainly smaller, but in no other respect different. The authors of 

 the "Northern Zoology" mention their having compared Arctic specimens 

 with one from the interior of China, and they found no difference. The 

 geographical distribution may therefore extend to a greater range than 

 was supposed, — Europe, China, and America. — Ed. 



